Quick biscuit recipe

This is a simple, versatile recipe that's very easy to make and also dangerously quick so perfect for those times when an emergency sugar fix is needed! We used to make these biscuits when I was child and I think the original version of the recipe is probably from the ancient Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium that was my Mum's favourite. She made sure that my sister and both got our own suitably dated copies too although, now I come to think about it, I'm not sure what has happened to Mum's?

Ingredients:
6oz plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground mixed spice
4oz butter
2oz sugar
small handful sultanas or any other dried fruit

Grease a baking tray and preheat the oven to about 180C.

Cream the butter and sugar together either by hand or with an electric mixer. When combined add the flour, baking powder and spice and mix again. When the mixture gets to the sort-of breadcrumb stage, throw in the sultanas and continue mixing. Eventually it will form one large ball and when it does you can stop. If you're mixing by hand, this is great exercise for bingo wings!

Take ping pong ball size pieces of the dough and roll them in your hands to smooth the edges. Flatten them slightly as you put them onto the baking tray. Leave a gap between the dough discs as they will expand a little during cooking.

When all the dough discs are on the baking tray, bake them in the preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes. I currently have a fan oven which I set to 180C and the biscuits only take 15 mins as we like them quite lightly baked and crumbly. The biscuits are very delicate while hot so be careful transferring them to a wire cooling sheet or they may disintegrate. Also, try not to eat them straight from the oven as the sultanas will blister your mouth!

Enjoy x

So I'm probably not taking my purple teapot

my purple teapot

Now that the euphoria of our successful single night in Bailey is wearing off, we’re moving forward and planning the far greater challenge of a Weekend Away! Small steps, people, small steps!

Calculating weight allowances is the most complicated holiday conundrum I think we’ve ever faced and fortunately Dave has the patience to be doing all the working out. Caravans are tricky things if you want to a) be legal and b) not break it. There’s maximum weights for the amount of caravan you can attach to your car, for the amount of stuff you can put in said caravan, and for the amount of additional stuff that you thought would go in the caravan but that it now turns out will need to go in the car. The most irritating aspect of all this though, is the difficulty in finding out exactly what is and is not included in the manufacturers guidelines. Bailey and Citroen both Please Take Note!

Important for caravans we discovered is the Mass In Running Order weight. This is everything you need to run the caravan, but not necessarily to run the holidaymakers. So surely you’d expect essentials like the gas bottles to be included, and the leisure battery, and the spare tyre? Our Bailey has a generous 147kg over the MIRO so we thought we could take loads of additional Stuff. But Dave has now discovered that that the gas (24kg), the battery (20kg) and the spare wheel (19kg) might need to come off that allowance. Might, might not, depends which forums you read. Bailey the manufacturers are resolutely silent on the matter. So possibly only 84kg available.

Same story with the car. Kerb Weight allows for a fairly full tank of diesel and probably a driver. But we can’t find anywhere where Citroen categorically says ‘yes’ for the driver, so we’re having to allow for ‘no’. And drivers are quite heavy – especially this one (not-telling-you kg)! On a positive note, I now have a great incentive to seriously get back into my running. The less I weigh, the more shoes I can take!

Finally in our current considerations, there’s the Nose Weight which is the amount the weight of the caravan pushes down onto the tow bar of the car. It can be adjusted a little by moving stuff around the caravan space, but mostly depends on the amount of tat I’ve stowed. And the nose weight gauge itself uses up 1.5 of our valuable kgs.

So I can take my stripey picnic rucksack because it contains a full set of plastic ‘crockery’: red china dinner plate 700g, red gingham plastic plate 50g. My prized Le Creuset oven dish (1400g) downgrades to an admittedly far more versatile tin pie dish (100g) and it looks like I might even have to cope without my purple pottery teapot (800g).

First night nerves unfounded and I even towed it

Dave catches some rays by our new caravan

A lot has happened since We're on our way but we're not going far! Firstly, we collected our beautiful new-to-us Bailey Orion 430-4 from John's Cross. Knowing we are novices, they kindly spent over an hour showing us around absolutely every button, dial, tube and cranky bit so we were a lot more confident when we left than when we arrived. Dave even got to try out about twenty yards of reversing. John's Cross also presented me with a lovely bouquet of flowers and some wine for Dave as a thank you for buying from them! Then a short nerve-wracking but happily uneventful drive to Horam later and our caravan was settled in at its new home, Woodland View Touring Park.


And that was that ... until yesterday ...

We spent the morning packing up the few bits we would need for a single night away, and then added lots more things that we think we might want on a longer trip. The idea was to check we could remember how to do everything we'd been taught and also to begin working out the best storage solutions for such essentials as a slow cooker and the toaster. We got to Horam and, under the watchful eye of site owner Sam, managed to extract our Bailey from a scarily tight space. ("Just pull straight forwards, you've got loads of room there!") Hitched up properly and fairly efficiently, the open road beckoned and Dave bravely set out on the long journey to Golden Cross. All seven miles of it! We could have done it in five, but chose the bigger roads.

Setting up Bailey is so much easier than pitching a tent! In the past, we could go from parking up to tent pitched & tea poured in about an hour and a half. In Bailey, an hour and a half included having found homes for all the random tat I'd brought along, fridge working and water running, tin gecko blu-tacked up, tea poured AND a choc chip cookie (bought on way, not baked on site!) All without raising a sweat - far more civilised than struggling with a bedroom pod and a groundsheet. One 'slight hiccup' could have been far worse than it actually was. As we tried to level Bailey front to back, the caravan suddenly pitched forwards and hit the ground. We learnt that it is vitally important to make sure that the clampy bit around the jockey wheel tube is tight. Very tight!

Sticky carpet was another problem. John's Cross (presumably although it could have been the original dealer) had put plastic over the two carpet pieces to protect them. However, because the plastic had been on for too long a time, when we removed it a sticky residue was left which we stuck to with every step. One carpet piece was bad, but the other was fine. Googling when we got home led me to CaravanTalk which suggested the gentle application of white spirit. An hour of this has removed most of the stickiness so a second application and a shampoo should get shot of the rest. I've now joined CaravanTalk - this is me.

Other hiccups were minor:
Reversing is probably never going to be fun.
The heater works better if the power to it is actually turned on.
The pump needs to be well under the water level in the aqua roll.

Old Mill campsite is quiet without much road noise late at night so I slept like a log. The bed is very comfortable and we were both glad we'd gone for the fixed bed option instead of making up a jumble of cushions. A little light comes in under the blind in the morning, but not enough to wake me up, only Dave, so that's OK.

And today I drove back to Horam. Me! And I don't know what I was worrying about. There was one moment where it all went a bit lurchy, but more power smoothed the ride. Dave squeaked on the first corner out of the campsite (bit close to a post!) but the rest went by fine. Braking obviously takes longer and I need to remember to allow several car lengths of space because gunning away from a standstill isn't an option. With practice I'll probably go faster - apologies to the people stuck behind when I was doing 40 through the s-bends on the Horam road but overall, a very positive experience.

We're both very pleased with ourselves and Bailey. I believe we're going to have wonderful times!
Woo hoo!

Quick Potato Salad recipe

Probably everyone has got their own variation on a potato salad recipe already but I thought I'd share this one which I can get from opening the fridge to serving up in about twenty minutes. It's simple to do and only has a few ingredients. The following amounts served two as an accompaniment to our lunch on Sunday. I had a mini Ploughman's Cheddar and Pickle Tartlet and Dave had a slice of Cumberland Sausage and Bramley Apple Pie - and, no, I didn't make either of those two myself! +Sainsbury's delicatessen counter did the honours.

175g new potatoes
pinch of salt
several fresh mint leaves
2 tsp Mayonnaise
squeeze of lemon juice

Put a saucepan of salted water on to boil while you cut the potatoes into roughly inch-cubed pieces. You can peel them if you want. I usually just wash them as I like the skins left on new potatoes. I cut up 4 good-sized potatoes which turned out to be just about 175g.

When the water comes to the boil, put the potato pieces in with a couple of fresh mint leaves. They'll probably only take about 10 minutes to cook so keep an eye on them and don't let them get too soft.

When the potatoes are cooked, drain them immediately and rinse them under cold water until they have completely cooled. I always do this even if I'm not moving straight on to the adding mayonnaise stage. Mum always did too. I can't remember why it's important though. Possibly it stops the potatoes continuing to cook? Maybe it stops them changing colour? Answers in the Comments below if you know!

Put the cooled potato into a bowl with 2 tsp of mayonnaise, a good squeeze of lemon juice and 3-4 fairly finely chopped mint leaves. I've already discarded the soggy ones from the saucepan. Mix all the ingredients together thoroughly but not too enthusiastically. You don't want to break up the potato pieces.

Serve cold.

There's lots of different ingredients you can also add to this salad to make it more impressive. it travels quite well for picnics and packed lunches as long as it can be kept cool. Chopped apple works nicely for a sweeter flavour, or chives and spring onions give a savoury crunch. Most green herbs will work whether fresh or dried. We're lucky because Dave grows fresh mint in our garden, but I've tried parsley, dill, coriander or basil instead to ring the changes. If I don't have half a fresh lemon already sat in the fridge, I will make do with a few drops of lemon juice out of a jar of slices instead of cutting into a new one. We are usually part-way through a jar because I use the slices in my Turkey Tagine recipe. I do like to use a good quality mayonnaise though because I find the cheaper ones can taste too acidic.